Join us for our Summer Institute Program, ENGAGE! where the focus will be: 

Who: Elementary and secondary teachers and other educational professionals in Potential Program Areas such as Special Education, Guidance, Success for All, Alternative Classrooms, Fast Forward.

What: ENGAGE! is a program that provides insight through a series of workshops and experiential activities, both in the classroom and outdoors, designed to initiate discussion about alternative approaches to working with at-risk youth. The focus of the program is to enhance your repertoire of tools and techniques to engage youth in your classroom/groups. Ultimately you are working to change the culture of your classroom/group and create opportunities for your students.

Within a maximum cohort of twelve participants, you will participate in collegial, Appreciative Inquiry methods of sharing; interactive workshop presentations; small group problem solving; technique sharing and interactive, experiential activities.

The following topic areas that will be explored are: 

• Designing classrooms and student spaces that will provide several options to optimize and accommodate multiple learning styles.
• Developing routines and schedules within the classroom to reduce any contagion effect. The use of specific and intentional sequencing to foster predictability, security and respect.
• The setup and maintenance of ‘full value agreements’. How staff and students can design and implement classroom norms and values together.
• Understanding the nature and mechanics of an at-risk student.  Exploring the full gambit of social, emotional and behavioural components that can be part of an at- risk student.
• Increase your repertoire of skills and modalities for working with at-risk populations. This will include an in depth look at strategic approaches for handling daily conflicts through proactive and solution based programming. We will utilize role plays and case scenarios as a basis for this conflict resolution.

This program is part of Innersee Initiatives’ Summer Institute. Innersee Initiatives has been working extensively for the past 11 years with at-risk student populations throughout Southern Ontario. The lead facilitators, combined, have over 30 years of direct experience working with at-risk populations. Your lead facilitators are Dave Varner, B.A., B.Ed., M.A., Greg Awad Lobe, B.TH., B.A., M.S.W., and Rod Matheson, M.E.S., Cert. Ad. Ed.  In addition to the expertise of your lead facilitators, there will be numerous guest speakers with expertise relevant to dealing with at-risk youth (e.g. cognitive disabilities, ADD, learning styles, substance abuse and classroom cohesion).

Location: Classroom activities within K-W area (site TBD by number of registrants). Some outdoor activities to take place at outdoor teambuilding course, just north of Elmira.

Team car pooling is possible with our 12 passenger van.

Come ENGAGE! with us !!